Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6991660" data-attributes="member: 42582">It's clear that Baker is not claiming that nothing ever follows from a hit point reduction - as is shown by step 6 (a hit for 8+ is a knockback).If hit points drop below zero, then the hit might be a kill.The only point is that, in general, a change in hit points does not in-and-of-iteslf require any change in the fiction.This can be seen by considering the ubiquitous act of D&D play:"Roll to hit." "16 after mods - is that enough?" "Yep - how much damage" "12 points - does that kill it?" "Nope, it's still standing. Who's next?"Nothing about any of those exchanges demands moving from cloud to cube. And that doesn't change even if everyone piles on the colour:"Roll to hit." "I lunge and take a mighty swing - 16 after mods - is that enough?" "Yep - how much damage" "It really is a might swing - max damage, 12  points - does that kill it?" "With a might lunge, your blade sinks deep into its flesh. But it's not enought to kill it - it's still standing. Who's next?"The extra colour doesn't actually change anything fundamental about the relationship between cubes and clouds. (And to allude back to my previous post: this is why the ogre throwing the cow bits isn't - in my view  - some breakthrough in RPGing. After the GM's initial narration for colour, the actual events of play can unfold exactly as above.)Contrast, say, the casting of a classic Trasmute Rock to Mud spell. That can't be done without engaging the fiction - first, you have to identify which rock you are transmuting, then it's behaviour has to be inferred from the fiction (eg on a ceiling/roof, it will fall; on a slope, it will flow; etc), and then the fate of those in it has to be inferred from the fiction too (eg, per the spell description, heavy armour > sinking and suffocating).See above. If you can move from mechanical state to mechanical state without need to go via the fiction, then you're moving from cube-to-cube.This is why the higher ground is different - that requires engaging with the fiction. (Unless the "higher ground" has become completely "mechanise" as a spot of advantageous ground on the battle map - this is a sort of limit case to which I think some 4e might be prone, as I think I noted upthread.)Which exercise? And what fault?Vincent Baker is using scenario 1 to explain and motivate the anlaytical framework - it's not until scenario 3 (which I didn't copy and paste, as it concerns a system quite different from D&D, that we get to the game - In a Wicked Age - that he wants to analyse.And no one is finding fault in anything. Lots of RPGs will have cube-to-cube events. That's not a flaw in a game, unless it is only cubes-to-cubes.No one's trying to "rationalise" anything. He's a designer. Who made a game that, in retrospect, doesn't work. He's trying to work out what went wrong, so he compares it to a trad game (which doesn't have the issue) and to DitV (his most successful game, which also doesn't have the issue).When a poster asks "Also, you said that those who have the most fun are those who insert these rightward arrows from elsewhere. If that is the most fun to play, why not include these arrows inside the game's mandatory structure?", Baker <a href="http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/427#11520" target="_blank">replies</a>, "Pretty much because I designed the game before I figured it out."He's not "rationalising". He's analysing and diagnosing, so he can avoid the same mistake in future designs. I think that's part of being a successful designer.The "clouds" and "cubes" come from the fact that it is a picture/diagram: clouds are a (not-unintuitive) symbol for imagined stuff, and cubes for real-world stuff like dice.I think the diagrams are helpful. The fact that, as an upshot, "clouds" gets used instead of "shared fiction" is tolerable.</blockquote>

Verification